Xbox app used to give notifications when I get party invites or when my favorite friends...

YES. When I start a party.....please assume that I would like to talk and not have to manually join party chat!! ALSO... when I invite a friend.....just send the invite....why do I have to check mark them THEN invite them.....extra steps that are not needed.

Friend notifications....PLEASE bring them back.... No I do not want 1000 pop ups (no I, or very few of us are going to have 1000 friends) BUT Either:

set it so friends in favorites only get notifications With ON/OFF toggle

or

In each friend on your list...choose whether you would like a notification when they come on line or not.

also just be able to say" xbox turn off/on notifications at any time.... sounds simple to me

Yes, I have. Nothing seems to solve the problem.

lately xbox is having a lot of problems due to the number of users there is, it's just a matter of waiting for them to improve it

Have you checked notification settings to make sure they show and that you are not set to "do not disturb"?

As for the party chat I cant help unfortunately

All notifications go to the notification center (top left corner of Home). If you miss acting on a toast (party invite, friend coming online, etc.) because you're in a match you can wait until it's over, go Home, go to notifications and you can join there,
open their profile etc.

You can actually do what you're talking about using voice though it's a couple more steps and you'll still get some UI over your game...

Here's an example:

You get a party invitation from your friend. When you see the toast say "Xbox, show notification" and then "Launch." This will launch the party app and accept the invitation so all you need to do then is say "Xbox, unsnap." At that point you should be in
a party with your friend.

Another example:

You see your friend come online (starting in April) but you don't have time to act on the toast. You can say "Xbox, invite" which will snap the party app, "Invite friends," (you will get UI over your game unfortunately), find the person in the list and say
"Person 1," and then invite them to a game/chat party. Then you can unsnap the party app again with "Xbox, unsnap" and you're GTG.

Give these a try and let me know how it goes. I really like the suggestion about being able to invite someone directly when you get a toast, I'll take that to the team. Thanks for the feedback!